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At just two years old, the social bookmarking site Pinterest is creating quite the buzz among users and is gaining the interest of retailers as a way to drive traffic to their websites.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is like a bunch of virtual bulletin boards categorized by specific topics, where users can post images and links that they find interesting. Users can then have followers, or follow others whose boards they find noteworthy. Bulletin boards are limited only by the user’s imagination. Common themes include recipes, wedding ideas, home decorating, travel, pets, home improvement, etc. The possibilities are endless. The visual nature of it is particularly intriguing to artists, designers and those who find a picture can be worth a thousand words.

How Is Pinterest Different from other Social Media Tools?

What’s so unique about Pinterest is how it’s driven by the user and self-creation. This is one social media channel that allows us all to be individuals on our own terms. If you want to peek over our shoulders and see what we’re interested in — great. It’s appealing to those who don’t want to participate in the up-to-the-second mentality of Twitter or the we’re all in this together of Facebook.

Is it the Anti-Search?

While search can help a user find something quickly, Pinterest is more about discovery. Think browsing rather than searching. (But, yes you can search Pinterest.) While it might ultimately lead the user to a retailer’s website, it brings an element that has been lost in the e-commerce world for a while—the art of browsing.

How Will Brands use Pinterest for Business?

Because Pinterest is extremely visual, websites that offer large, high resolution, beautiful images, and smart relevant content are far more likely to be shared than sites with lower quality images and poor content. Brands will do well by putting forth the effort needed to make their content and visuals worthy of pinning, and even better… repinning.

Pinterest Stats Worth Talking About

Women account for 58% of Pinterest traffic [Source: Experian Hitwise]

Pinterest traffic increased more than fourfold between September and December 2011 bringing in 7.51 million unique visitors in December alone.[Source: Compete]

Total same-store referral traffic from Pinterest to five specialty apparel retailers rose 389 percent from July to December 2011 [Source: Monetate Platform-wide Analytics]